[2] HMS Orpheus (named after the Greek hero) was a Jason-class corvette, a screw-driven vessel built in Chatham Dockyard in Kent, England, in 1861.

She displayed a broad pennant to indicate that Commodore William Farquharson Burnett, senior officer of HM ships and vessels on the Australian and New Zealand Stations, was also on board.

The mission was not to reinforce the British ships already taking part in the New Zealand Wars, but to arrange for the withdrawal of two Royal Navy sloops: Miranda, stationed in Manukau harbour, and Harrier.

Orpheus was behind schedule, and Burnett decided to save some time by cutting through Manukau Harbour rather than going by the intended course of rounding North Cape and sailing down the East Coast of Northland.

As the ship approached the submerged bar, a navigational signal from nearby Paratutae Island was received instructing her to turn north to avoid a grounding.

Soon after, Quartermaster Frederick Butler (a convicted deserter, and one of only two men on board to have previously entered Manukau Harbour) alerted the senior officers to the improper course they were taking.

An information board located at Kakamatua Inlet on the Waitākere Ranges, near Titirangi to the west of Auckland, indicates the approximate area, now heavily overgrown, where some of the victims were buried.

[6][7] Three inquiries were held after the shipwreck, but due to the unwillingness of the Royal Navy to admit an officer's culpability much of the blame was laid on Edward Wing for not guiding the ship into the harbour and for failing to maintain the signalling station on Paratutai Island.

In all, 189 people died in the wreck of HMS Orpheus, including Commodore Burnett and Captain Burton, giving it the highest ever casualty rate for a shipwreck in New Zealand waters.

[12] The wreck of the Orpheus is scheduled for preservation in the Auckland Regional Plan: Coastal[13] and is also protected under the archaeological provisions of the Historic Places Act 1993.